When Your Beliefs Are Belittled — Part 4

Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I'm so glad you're here. Today we're going to continue our series called Unshakable. Rick is taking us through the book of Daniel. And that's so we'll be equipped to handle whatever curveball life throws at us, even the most difficult trials. Right now we're going to listen to the final part of a message called when your beliefs are belittled. Now here's Rick.

If your life has gotten cold, you're not spending enough time in fellowship, you've gotten out here in the world by yourself and your heart has grown cold because you're mailing it in, you're calling it in, you're not going to the meeting, you're not in the fellowship. The Bible says, where two or three are gathered in my name, I'm there with them. So you need a support system, you need a church, you need a small group, and you need a ministry to give something back because that's where you develop your muscles. Now here's what The Bible says. First Peter 2:15. It is God's will. You wanna do God's will. Here it is. It is God's will that you live such a good life that it silences those who foolishly condemn the gospel without knowing what it can do for them. The best antidote to a skeptic, a critic, an attack at school is just live a good life. You don't need to get engaged necessarily trying to defend it all, because a lot of times people who are really angry just wanna be angry. They don't wanna be convinced, they don't wanna be changed. In fact, the deeper someone is emotionally being anti Christian, it just means the more they're hurt, they hurt. They're acting out of emotion, not out of logic. The deeper they react, the more they have a hidden hurt in their life. And so all your logic isn't gonna change them. But live such a good life, it silences those who foolish condemn the gospel without knowing what it. Saddleback Student Ministries is filled with young Daniels. Last week you heard a story. I want you to hear one more this week. I want you to give a warm welcome to Jenna.

After seeing God's work in the lives of my friends and family, I finally decided to go all in with Christ and was baptized with my two best friends at camp right before my freshman year. I continued to grow in my relationship with Jesus despite a few minor bumps in the road. But being all in for Christ seemed relatively easy until an experience at my high school tested and strengthened my faith in ways I never could have expected. There are a lot of Saddleback students that go to my school and we came up with this great idea to get the word out about our high school ministry and our student run HSM service by posting a sticky note on every locker in our school with a kind phrase such as you are loved or the information to our service times that weekend written on it. The volunteers worked for hours writing and posting notes all over the school early in the morning so that they would be the first thing students saw when they walked onto campus that day. Heading into that day, I knew there would be people that would be annoyed with the notes on their lockers, but never expected the magnitude of what erupted when fifth period AP European History rolled around. Being surrounded in my class by close friends and a teacher who weren't believers, I already felt outnumbered. Knowing my teacher and classmates would have a strong opinion to share. My teacher spoke out about how offensive the sticky note project was and how we had somehow broken the law breaching a sacred barrier between teachers and students and religion. He then proceeded to inform the class of what he believed our team's intentions were, convincing some of my other classmates and even friends that we had done this to glorify ourselves and to promote only Christian groups on campus. Another student chimed in, calling Christians hypocrites for promoting and accepting only our beliefs. Now, I know most of you are adults, but I know for a fact that each and every person in this room remembers or is currently experiencing high school just trying to slide by in the back of the room, maintaining as little interaction with teachers as possible. Now, being the typical sleep deprived, shy AP student we all know too well, I rarely had any reason to speak out in class anyway. This wasn't one of those moments. I knew I couldn't stay quiet for much longer. Throughout his entire rant, I was deeply hurt and confused with the assumptions he had made about my friends and our goal with the sticky notes, I felt that he was demeaning all the hard work and passion we had behind the project, all for the sake of influencing my peers to take his side. Before I knew it, my hand was up in the air and I was shaking like a Chihuahua. I stood seemingly alone in a room full of people and tension. But it was then that I realized that I've never felt God's presence more. Knowing that something big was about to go down, my friends urged me to give up and let him continue, warning me of what he or my other classmates might think of me if I spoke out I informed my teacher and class of the real goal behind the Post it note project and explained that we had asked for permission from all the necessary faculty and staff members to even carry the idea out. Before I could go any further, my teacher stopped me and brought up all kinds of legal issues that could arise from the commotion and controversy that we had stirred up that morning. I later explained to my friends that were in the class the specifics of the project, yet most of them still remained unsupportive of my speaking out. I was shocked, thinking they would understand how important the project was for me and that it even brought me to speak out against a teacher, something I've never been known to do. I left class that day with a feeling of unfulfillment, like I hadn't done enough to prove my point. And yes, I felt petrified and empowered, yet judged a combination of all these feelings at the same time. And I wish I could tell you that after this my teacher and peers had a change of heart and that they all came to service that weekend and came to know Christ. But that day is still yet to come. But you want to know what the crazy part is? The one feeling I never have about that day is regret. I mean, how could I feel regret or shame for doing something that honored God? I didn't immediately see the results and effects that I had expected after speaking out and standing alone in my faith, but the impact that has been made in my life is clear as day. I decided this summer at camp to put my life fully in God's hands and to trust that he will provide committing my life to full time ministry in the future. I don't know what that looks like and how it'll all work out yet, but I know that even when I'm frustrated with people who disagree with me and dismiss my faith, that my church is a second family ready for me to run to them. This experience has only encouraged me to chase after God even more and to pursue his plans for me, no matter how strong my earthly desires to fit in and give in to temptation may seem. I've broken my shy and insecure old habits and have become a person that no longer sees the fear in sharing Christ with others. I now realize how important the other Christians in my life are as well, and how their encouragement has impacted my high school journey so far. This is such a loving and inspiring community of people that I can't wait to be a part of for the rest of my life. We have a God that is so for us. There's Nothing that could possibly stand against us. Thank you.

Great job. My favorite thing that Jenna said was she goes, I was shaking like a Chihuahua. You all know that feeling. If you've ever had your faith tested, you go, I am scared to death. Now listen, courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is doing the right thing while you're scared to death. That's what she was. That is a courageous woman. That is a Daniel right there. We need more Daniels with courage. And if you're not afraid, you don't need courage. If you're not scared, you don't need courage. Courage is what you do when you have the character to do something. You are flat out shaking like a Chihuahua. There you go. I'm scared to death, but I'm gonna speak up here at the water cooler, at the office. I'm scared to death, but I'm gonna speak up right here on the field or on the golf course. I'm scared to death. That is courage. And God honors that. I'll never forget when I was in high school, I had an AP class and we had a teacher who was little avant garde. And the first day he came in, he just started railing on Christianity and the Bible. And he had all of these excuses and arguments and, you know, you're a freshman. I'm just going, well, makes sense. Okay, maybe I'm wrong and you start to doubt yourself. You go, you know, maybe this isn't right. Now, what I didn't know, because, you know, a teacher can seem pretty impressive on their own turf, especially if you're the student. What I didn't know is that every single excuse and every single argument and every single false logic that he gave could have been easily disproved by any adult who knew the standard answers to those arguments. But I didn't know him. And he wasn't nearly as impressive once I got a little older. And I go, well, that's a dumb idea. And that doesn't work. And that doesn't work. So, you know, don't be fooled by attacks that Christianity is anti intellectual. That's just nonsense. Until the last 150 years, practically every scientist was a Christian. Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, on and on, on and on and on. Da Vinci. These people had a faith in God. They were men of God. That's why they were studying God's creation. It's only in the last 150 years we've had, quote, non believing scientists. I mean, people like Voltaire. Voltaire's very famous. The famous skeptic, agnostic, atheist, and Voltaire made a very famous statement. So he said, 100 years from today, the Bible will be a buried book. No, not quite. Okay? It's still the number one bestselling book in the world. Bestselling book of all time is out there. And by the way, when Voltaire died, his home became the headquarters for the French Bible Society. So, you know, there's a lot of people trying to rewrite history. It's just not true. Okay, number six, last thing. If you want to excel at your education and still not lose your faith, remember that God will reward me. Remember that God will reward me. God has promised. Jesus has promised repeatedly, over and over that you will receive great rewards in eternity. For every time you are harassed for your faith, when you were criticized, you were insulted, you were shunned, you were made fun of because you stood for the Bible and biblical truth. And the Bible says you're gonna be rewarded. Jesus said it like this in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you at work or school or wherever. Persecute you falsely, say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. You're gonna be rewarded forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. For great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you, you're in the same category as Daniel and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Moses and all those other guys. I told you in the last session that Daniel was one of the only two men in the entire history of the world besides John, who wrote the Book of Revelation, who God trusted enough to show how history is gonna end, how the world is gonna end. And he gave him visions. It's in this book. It's in the book of Daniel. And he trusted him because he had tested him in all of these areas. I wanna just show you an encouraging little scene in the future that's going to happen. God says, Philippians chapter 2, verses 9 to 11. God has given Jesus the name that is above every every other name. By the way, have you noticed that you say Jesus, it, like, freezes people up. God has given Jesus a name that's different than any other name. You talk about Jesus, people get nervous. God has given Jesus a name that's above every other name, so that one day this is gonna happen in the future, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord. Now imagine this scene at the end of history. Everybody who's ever lived is gonna be kneeling before Jesus Christ. And everybody is going to be saying, jesus is Lord. Some of them in praise because they've said it all their lives. And some of them in judgment to themselves because they've denied it all their lives. And I just wanna say to those of you who are students that on that day, in that crowd of billions who will be on their knees saying, jesus is Lord, all of your teachers and all of your professors are gonna kneel and say, jesus is Lord. On that day, all of your friends who made fun of you are gonna kneel. And on that day say, jesus is Lord. On that day, every rock star, every athlete, every celebrity, they're all gonna be on their knees saying, jesus is Lord. Every politician and every world leader will be on their knees saying, jesus is Lord. Freud and Stalin and Marx and Darwin and everybody else will be on their knees Plato and Aristotle saying, jesus is Lord. And every atheist who refused in their pride to admit it now will be on their knees saying, jesus is Lord. So don't worry, God wins in the end. History is his story. And you don't need the approval of other people to feel good about yourself. God the Father made you. Jesus died for you. The spirit lives in you. You don't need their approval. Let's bow for prayer. Dear God, I wanna excel in my life, in my education, in my life, in my career. And I don't wanna lose my faith. So I'm deciding today in advance of the test. Cause I know it's gonna come. I'm deciding in advance to stand for God. I'm making up my mind like Daniel did, not to defile myself. Help me to remember that reverence for the Lord is an education in itself. Help me to never stop learning. Help me to value knowledge and wisdom. Help me to get them both. Help me to see and respond to life from your viewpoint. And because I know that it comes from you. Help me to steep myself in your word. To spend time every day reading the Bible, thinking, meditating about the Bible and doing what it says. That I might be prosperous and successful as you've promised God. I wanna learn the truth in order to discern the lies that are all around me. Help me to choose believers as my best friends and to not hang out with people who pull me down. Help me to stay connected. I wanna be connected to a church, to a small group, to a ministry for input, for output, for support. And when I feel all alone, help me to remember that even when I'm attacked That you are going to reward me for eternity. That I don't need other people's approval. That I am deeply loved by you and Jesus Christ. I'm not going to wait till that day. That's gonna happen eventually. I'm saying it today. Jesus Christ, you are the Lord of my life. You're the boss, the CEO, you're the manager. You're in control. You call the shots. You're the chairman of the board. You're not just resident. You're president of my life. You are my Lord. And I wanna thank you for loving me. In your name I pray. Amen. Hi everybody, this is Rick and I hope you enjoyed today's broadcast. You know, if you just prayed that prayer for the very first time or you just recommitted your life to Jesus again today, would you let me know about it? There's something real about sharing your commitment. So write me rickastorrick.com and say, Rick, I prayed that prayer of commitment. I gave my life to Christ. And I'll send you some material that'll help you on your journey with Jesus. And I'll also pray for you. God bless you.

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today here on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. You know, as we look at the unprecedented things going on in our world today, it is so clear that we need to be equipped with the biblical wisdom that gives us power to handle whatever life throws at us. So that's why Pastor Rick created a life changing Bible study called Unshakeable. And it's based on the book of Daniel. In these eight powerful video lessons, Rick will teach you how to handle life's most difficult trials and situations and how to thrive under extreme pressure. How to pray the kind of prayers that God answers. And this video study includes a workbook. It's perfect for individual or small group Bible study. Please request your copy today when you give a gift to help Daily Hope take the word of God to people around the world. You just go to pastorrick.com to get your copy. That's pastorrick.com or just text the word hope to 70309. Again, the word hope to 70309 and thanks so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope means so much to us because it helps us share the hope of Jesus Christ to people all around the world. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's Word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.

Sam.